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The first time it happened they tried to justify it. A brief foray into uncharted territory simply to sate curiosity. Nothing more. It would never be anything more.
The second time it was just a coincidence. He brushed her hand by accident. Her heart skipped a beat. She did not pull away. He leaned in. Next thing either of them knew they were in the nearest supply closet. An accident. A quaint little happenstance.
The rule of three decrees that something will invariably be different on the third event. On Amell and Jowan's third encounter (she needed help studying and didn't mean to leave her robes so open, you see) a templar walked in on them. Though, it's hard to say you, “walked in,” on anyone when they were having sex in the middle of the library. The Knight-Commander certainly gave them an earful, ordering them to, “stop this love affair,” as he called it. Amell and Jowan laughed on the way back to the commons. They laughed until they had tears in their eyes. A love affair. How cute. As if that was what this could ever be, Jowan had said.
Of course, Amell agreed. She could not meet his eyes. She could not explain the strange feeling that bubbled just where her heart should be. A love affair. How perfect.
He said that he'd stopped counting after the fourth encounter and she had agreed. Amell had also lied, because that was what Amell liked to do. She liked to persuade people and lie to them and maybe fuck them too. Only if they were cute. To Amell, Jowan was very cute. He was cute, sweet, funny, and he had ways about him that made her body sing. He made her heart leap. Which was a ridiculous thought that she shook from her head every time it came up. What concerned her was that it kept coming up.
So what if she still counted every time they had sex? It didn't mean anything. Counting didn't mean that she was feeling something for her best friend, or that she feared the end was soon. It wasn't as if she kept count to hold tight to him as she pushed him away all the same. No, it meant nothing. Neither did the sex. That was what she told herself, anyway.
She should have known. Amell was a mature girl, gifted for her age, and old enough to know that in the Circle good things do not last. Things like falling in love with your best friend aren't the kind of fairy tales mage girls get to have. How many fights had they had? How often had they bickered about so many things? Politics, the world, Amell's wandering eye, how Jowan just didn't understand her. She should have known eventually she was going to break this. She just didn't think it would be so soon.
Jowan avoided her for a while after their last fight. They always mended back together even if they didn't mean to, but not now. This was different. They weren't just friends anymore. Now their relationship was a kind of territory they were lost in without a map. Amell was a stubborn girl, she'd been told. She would not be the one to apologize. It had worked like that before things changed. He'd come back, she kept telling herself. Jowan always came back.
How stupid she'd been. If she'd have known it would be the last time she'd of savored him. Amell would have worshiped at the altar of his body like a repentant sinner if she'd just known. She looked at him up at him. He stood a head above her because she so damn short and his eyes were some color she'd never noticed. The color always seemed to be changing. Jowan's eyes now were a glimmering blue, like sunlight streaking through ocean water. He looked at Lily with those eyes. Amell's gut clenched. Perhaps, if she did this impossible task and succeeded he would be her's again. Maybe there was hope. Doing this would show to him that she loved him. It would bring him back to her and they could be free together. This didn't have to end.
Blood magic. Amell giggled in someplace just off the cusp of manic. Blood magic.
When he had sliced his palm Amell almost didn't know what was happening. She had hoped it wasn't what she thought it was in the midst of fear that it was and that clouded her judgment. Funny. As if it was that.
Amell sucked in the breath that almost became a sob. She would not cry. Amell was not weak for men. She swore she would not be weak for him but now here she was. Bloody, betrayed, and hopelessly in love.
Ten times. Amell breathed out. They had been together ten times. They would not be together again. Amell would not make the same mistakes again. Ten times.